


they've been watching all my windows

by Anonymous



Series: CARGO [3]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Bombs, Drabble, Gen, I don't know how to fucking tag this, Obsessive Behavior, One Shot, dream is a criminal but why isnt exactly specified, george and sap are government agents who have been watching him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28605498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Clay's time is up.
Series: CARGO [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2073561
Kudos: 13
Collections: Anonymous





	they've been watching all my windows

There is a crow with a metal eye on Clay’s porch. He sees the bird when he looks out of the peephole at 6:27 pm, looking for the neighbour. He doesn’t shoo it away, just watches, until the neighbour walks up the street and drags his attention away.

The neighbour moved in a little over two months ago. Everyday since he has walked his pitbull around the block, wearing the same blue shirt and the same white goggles he always does. Usually, his hair is parted to the right. Today, it's been parted to the left. Clay wonders what it means and tries not to feel uneasy. 

The dog walker disappears around the bend, but the crow with the metal eye does not leave. It’s still there when he takes his eye off the peephole at 6:31 pm. 

Clay makes his way back into the main room of the house and lets his eyes adjust to the sudden brightness. Every screen in the room is turned on, pulsing with camera feeds and data logs and lines of code. 

He sets the smallest screen to display the camera feed from his porch, and the crow with the metal eye is still there. Very pointedly, it does not look at the camera. Smart bird. For several moments, he watches it hop around in a very bird-like manner and watches as the scanners display it’s species in the top corner of the monitor. 

After that, he turns his eyes to the largest screen. It’s 6:34 pm, and the dog walker isn’t home yet. Not unusual, but definitely noteworthy. He keeps his gaze transfixed on the black and white view of the dog walkers porch, blinking only when tears threaten to spill over. 

6:37 pm passes by without fanfare. 6:37 pm was the longest time the dog walker had ever taken to walk home, until today. His hands tremble. The crow is a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, hopping aimlessly around.

The dog walker does not return to his house until 6:42 pm. He still wears his blue shirt and his white goggles. His pitbull stands to the side as he unlocks the front door. His hair is mussed, like someone’s run a hand through it.

_Like someone’s run a hand through it._

At 6:50 pm, the dog walker leaves his house again. Clay is not there to see it. 

Instead, he stands with a mask on his face, a chock-full backpack slung over his shoulder. Gingerly, he kneels, and pry's a floorboard open with shaking hands. Splinters dig into his fingernails and his shoulders ache with the effort, but he doesn’t stop until the floorboard yields. 

A single gloved hand reaches down into the dark below, curling around a dusty metal tube. 

Behind the curtain, a yellow light flickers, casting beams of gold against the rotten floorboards. Clay strains his ears, and does not breath and hears footsteps. 

He’s too late.

His hands shake around the tube, and he stands as though he can’t bear to disturb the dust. The light passes by, and the footsteps fade. In the distance, a dog barks.

The dust in his house settles like gunpowder in his lungs, but it muffles his footsteps, so he is thankful. 

He slots the tube into a holder on the back of the front door. It fits perfectly, because Clay made sure that it would. His life depends on it. 

Out of the peephole he glances. He sees the dog walker, a pack of pitbulls, the crow with the metal eye and a man with yellow flame dancing along his fingers. 

His time is up.

Clay runs. He fumbles with the backdoor knob, but leaps the fence in a single breath. For a moment he sprints through the open, completely exposed. Anyone could take him out with ease, could splatter his guts across this flaxen field of grass. 

Miraculously, no one takes the chance, and he escapes into the treeline. It’s at that moment that the bomb goes off, timed perfectly.

The heat flattens him against the ground, but his ears don’t ring. Only a moment later he’s on his feet again, ducking branches and leaping logs as he escapes.

A siren in the distance reminds him that he hasn’t made it yet. The smell of wet earth reminds him that he’s close.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "dangerous" by big data & joywave, oliver remix


End file.
